


Sense Memory

by lyricwritesprose



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-13 16:35:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11189079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyricwritesprose/pseuds/lyricwritesprose
Summary: Roseshouldtry to sleep off the drug. She doesn't want to.





	Sense Memory

**Author's Note:**

> This story contains attempted brainwashing, so it probably deserves a mental violence warning. Written for yamx as a stocking stuffer.

"There is no London," the plastic-faced machine said, in a voice like sweet corn syrup. "There is no Earth. There is no Doctor. You have been very sick, Rosan 44957, but you'll be better soon. Be obedient. Complete your therapy."

Rose thought, _no, you're wrong, see, I_ know _you're wrong,_ but she couldn't say it. She knew it was wrong because she'd done this bit already. This was where he came in.

Only he didn't. He wasn't.

"There is no London. There is no Earth." The face was supposed to look female, but it wasn't a very good job. The voice came from a box in its chest; the unnaturally upcurved smile never moved. "There is no Doctor. You have been very sick, Rosan 44957 . . ."

He was supposed to come in. He was _supposed_ to come in. Right now.

"Be obedient. Complete your therapy. There is no London. There is no Earth. There is no Doctor."

Only he wasn't coming in, because you couldn't get rescued by people who didn't exist.

The realization made Rose feel sick. (You have been very sick, Rosan 44957.) _No,_ she thought and couldn't say, _no, no, no, it isn't true, it isn't possible._ (But you'll be better soon.) She didn't _want_ to be better, she wanted to run through fields of russet grass with a grinning lunatic alien. (There is no Doctor.) She struggled against the voice, drowning in it, smothering, helpless. (There is no Doctor.) The words were starting to become meaningless, to sound like so much noise. (There is no Doctor.) No, of course there wasn't. (There is no Doctor.) What was a Doctor?

The stab of grief felt like someone had died. She woke herself by blurting out, _"Don't!"_

~~~~~~~~

Lights happened as soon as she opened her eyes. There was a moment when Rose had no idea where she was. And then everything resolved into the TARDIS sickbay, and the Doctor was holding her hand, talking softly. "Rose. Rose, listen to me. They're gone. You're safe. It's over."

_"Ohhh."_ Rose closed her eyes for an instant, then snapped them open again, not wanting to drift off into sleep. "I'm _so_ glad you blew up that therabot."

She'd been drugged and strapped down, but still arguing woozily with the machine. She remembered hearing the door hiss open behind her and a very familiar warbling sound, and then the bot's voicebox exploded. And then, just a moment later, he was unstrapping her. She remembered being amazed at how very _real_ he was, how solid—why, you couldn't even wave your hand through him if you tried!

She'd slurred, "Your eyes are really, really blue," and felt like she said something profound. Color was important. Everything in this city was gray. The _people_ were gray, metaphorically at least, queuing patiently for the same tasteless gruel for every meal, faces blank, while the anti-aircraft batteries thudded in the distance.

Getting back to the TARDIS was all a bit of a blur, but she felt like she'd been here for a while. "Have you been sitting up with me all this time?"

"Have to monitor you, don't I?" She supposed perhaps it was supposed to come out gruff and businesslike. It didn't. "They dosed you with hypnotics. Things like that have side effects."

"Like bad dreams?"

"You dream about bein' back there? Hearin' them, over and over again?" Rose nodded. "Not a side effect. That's what was _meant._ Hypnotics are supposed to turn off your judgment, make you accept things the way you do in dreams. Only natural it bleeds over into real sleep."

"Oh."

His face softened. He had, Rose thought muzzily, so many different faces for different occasions. The look of it back in the conditioning room, with the therabot burning behind him and the fire alarms wailing; then, his expression was all harsh angles, harder than steel. Now, he was so different. "Still got a little of the drug in your system," he told her. "Probably ought to get some sleep. We'll go after the War Computer in the morning." His face said that he might, possibly, reprogram the War Computer with more force than the task required.

"I don't want to," Rose admitted. "I keep dreaming I'm back there. I keep feeling like—" She looked away. "I think I was slipping away. I think I was losing it—losing _you._ I didn't want to, I was fighting it as hard as I could, but—"

"Rose Tyler, are you tryin' to apologize for bein' _drugged?_ 'Cause if you are, the next sentence is gonna have 'stupid' in it, and nobody wants that."

"I know. I know, I jus' can't help but—it _feels_ like betraying you. An' I don't want to dream I'm back there, it's like being squeezed into a little gray box. An'—don't you have some sort of superpill? Something that can make me sleep but not dream?"

He regarded her for a moment. Rose thought, _he's going to think I'm weak, he's going to think I'm useless,_ and wished she could take the words back.

"Got something better," the Doctor said. "I know how your mind works. Literally." He took off his jacket.

He _took off_ his _jacket._ Rose stared at him.

"Here, lift up." She did, and he spread the jacket across her pillow, lining upmost. "That'll sort you."

"How?" After some of the things she'd seen, she could almost believe there were special Time Lord tricks sewn into the garment. But she'd never seen any sign of them before.

A smug grin. "You'll work it out. G'night, Rose."

She _was_ sleepy. "Good—" She interrupted herself with a yawn. "Night." She laid her head on the jacket-covered pillow and closed her eyes.

She was almost asleep before she realized why she was more comfortable. The jacket _smelled_ right. It smelled like leather and TARDIS maintenance and like—she wasn't sure like what. Time Lords didn't seem to sweat, and the Doctor didn't have human body odor, but there was a faint trace of something all the same. Alien grass and alien skies and wild manic grins and running and defying the darkness and best friends and home. That's what it smelled like.

Rose slept. She dreamed that dandelions were trying to take over the world, but she also dreamed the Doctor was beside her, every second of it. So that was all right.


End file.
